President Obama and Vice President Biden watch the inaugural parade in the reviewing stand in front of the White House on Monday. / Gerald Herbert, AP

by Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY

by Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Vice President Biden said Thursday that Americans should support a reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, in part because it will keep police on the streets of the USA safer.

As Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday that would reinstate a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, Biden pushed back against the argument that such a ban had little effect in improving gun safety when one was on the books from 1994 to 2004.

Participating in what was billed by the White House as a "Fireside Hangout" on the website Google+, Biden acknowledged that assault weapons account for a small fraction of gun deaths in America. But, he said, law enforcement organizations overwhelmingly support the ban for good reason.

"There were fewer police being murdered, fewer police being outgunned when the assault weapons ban, in fact, was in existence," Biden said.

Biden, responding to a question from one of the participants about the need for assault weapons for protection in the aftermath of a natural disaster, said another weapon would more useful.

"Guess what? A shotgun will keep you a lot safer - a double-barreled shotgun - than an assault weapon in somebody's hands that doesn't know how to use it, even one who does know how to use it," Biden said. "You know, it's harder to use an assault weapon to hit something than it is a shotgun, OK. So if you want to keep people away in an earthquake, buy some shotgun shells."

Though gun-control advocates have been generally warm to the sweeping gun-control agenda President Obama unveiled this month, some on the left have criticized his call to hire up to 1,000 school resource officers and school-based mental health professionals.

Biden said the administration is not calling for armed guards in schools - something the National Rifle Association has proposed. Instead, schools would have the flexibility to hire a uniformed guard, he said.

He said it would be a "terrible mistake" to arm school staff. "The last thing we need to do is be arming school teachers and administrators," he said.

Friday, Biden will travel to Richmond, Va., to meet with experts who have worked on gun safety issues in the wake of the mass shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in 2007.

The White House said the president and Biden will hit the road in coming weeks to push their agenda to curb gun violence, which has become a top priority in the aftermath of last month's mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.